


Just Another Manic Mixtape

by vanceypants



Category: Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz
Genre: Crushes, Eventual Romance, M/M, Rich Goranski is in loooooooove~~~~, Trans Rich Goranski, expensive headphones, pining rich
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-03
Updated: 2018-10-16
Packaged: 2019-06-21 06:58:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 11
Words: 18,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15552198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vanceypants/pseuds/vanceypants
Summary: There were very few things that Rich knew without a shadow of a doubt, because shadows and doubt were two of his most comfortable states of being.  But one thing he knows for sure is that Michael Mell is smoking hot, and smoking cute, and smoking funny, and smoking pot probably but that's neither here nor there.  The point of the matter stands, though: he's a major cutie who Rich is determined to seduce.  And now that he's squipless enough to embrace the whole bi thing, maybe he can finally make this thing happen.Of course, he's also squipless enough now to be a lisping, pathetic mess, so maybe seduction just isn't in the cards.





	1. Take Advantage of My Heart

**Author's Note:**

> Hello and welcome to, big shocker, my latest in Expensive Headphones edutainment. You know, like those elementary school docucomedic cartoons that your teacher would show you. I am here to entertain, and also to educate, even if that education is purely in juvenile prose.
> 
> NOW! I should say that this fic does take place within the same general universe as Smoke Signals, however reading that fic is absolutely not required reading for this (esp since I haven't posted all of that fic yet). I only bring that up because I gloss heavily over Rich's time with a squip, with just a base overview, as Smoke Signals focuses more heavily on that aspect of Rich's life, while this focuses more on the fun crushy-crushy, lovey-dovey, shippery that I'm steadily making my life's mission.
> 
> I just really like these two I think is what I'm getting at.
> 
> Anyway, unlike that other fic, I have not finished writing this already, so I cannot promise rapid fire updates or an update schedule. I will try to post at least one chapter a week, however, as I do have the entire story plotted out--it's just a matter of getting it all posted.
> 
> This story is in two parts, will probably be roughly 20 chapters, and right around 30,000 words, if I know my pacing correctly. 
> 
> I don't think there are many things I need to warn for here, but just to be certain: this fic does contain dysphoria, suicidal ideation, as well as depictions of underage sexuality. I will provide more comprehensive warnings for each chapter (this first chapter contains most of the dysphoria that you'll see within the fic, for instance). 
> 
> Now then, my long author's notes out of the way, I hope you enjoy the fic.

Just Another Manic Mixtape

SIDE A

Chapter 1: Take Advantage of My Heart

The problem with Middle Borough was it had a way of making you think all the problems, in the end, were because of you.

And Emily didn't need an extra set of hands or eyes telling him that all his problems were on his own shoulders, because he already knew that all too well, thank you very much.

It was hard not to know that, when you were a boy named Emily.

Or when you were a boy with boobs, for that matter.

Sometimes, when he was library aid and went to the back room to cut assignments with the paper cutter, he considered placing his chest in the way of the blade, and just pulling it down until BAM, titty salami.

It was the sort of thing he couldn't dream of telling Jake. Hell, he couldn't even come around to telling Jake to change pronouns for him. Like hell he'd tell him he wanted to slice up his chest, or maybe it wasn't that he hated his chest, but he hated what his chest made other people look at him as.

Or maybe it was the fact that nobody really looked at all, and he couldn't blame that on pronouns or body shapes or weird deli meat fantasies about said body shapes.

Emily adjusted his glasses, and leaned back against the lockers as he watched his fellow students pass by. There was Jake, off to practice, but not so fast that he couldn't offer Emily a brief smile. A call of "yo, Millie!" and a headnod and, god, Emily almost wished he was in love with Jake. It'd be so easy, with a smile like that, with those all American good looks, with that ass that you could bounce a quarter off of. Hell, you could bounce the whole cash register drawer off that thing.

He tried. Pressed back against the lockers and tried to will a sense of adulation and infatuation and girlish giggles into his mind.

He loved Jake.

But he didn't like him.

Wait, no. He liked Jake, but he didn't love him. Or, god, what was it? Emily had never been a sleepover type of guy, hadn't picked up the proper lingo. The like-likes and such. 

Being a teenager sucked.

Being a freshman sucked.

Because he liked him and he loved him, but he wasn’t in love with him, but there was a sense of desire when he looked at Jake that filled his insides with sandpaper and bile. Something about the fact he already had stubble, or the way his hips refused to sway when he walked, or the contours of his chest. He wanted it, but not in a “put that against me” way, but a “donate your body for science and also my dysphoria please” way.

It was all too fucked. And further proof that him trying to deflect his problems onto the school itself were probably misfounded, but damn did Emily ever wish he had an out sometimes.

So there was Jake.

And there were Chloe and Brooke. Because it was never one without the other, except maybe that awkward time in seventh grade where they weren’t talking because Brock Juniper asked Brooke to the dance but Chloe totally had a crush on Brock, and that was a whole thing on its own, at least until he transferred schools before the dance...and god being a middle schooler sucked even worse than high school, Emily had to remind himself whenever he started to think times were too hard.

So there was Brooke, hugging books to a chest overdeveloped for her age, and there was Chloe with eyes that never seemed to feel anything but scorn. Or maybe that was all Emily could see, because that was all Chloe ever gave to him. Who knew what people were like with their most secret selves, or even their slightly-secret-only-for-friends selves? Emily had Jake, but so did everyone else, so what did he really know, about an exclusivity of affection?

That was unfair to Jake. He did everything he could to try to include Emily. It wasn’t his fault that Emily was such a fuck up.

And there was Jenna. Trailing after the pair of girls like she wasn’t an Other just like Emily, and speaking so rapidly, it was as though she were building a lasso with her words. Like she could rope the entire world in and never lose herself in a crowd again.

And there was Christine, and a gaggle of sophomores, and that Mark kid who carried a Gameboy everywhere he went. There were the Best Seniors Of The School, and there was the janitor everyone swore they'd seen on the sexual predator website, honest possum, swear to god I don't know why he's not loading now but I swear I saw him for real guys. 

There was the debate team and the chess team and the drama club and why didn't Christine travel with the drama club?

Emily thought a lot about where everyone stood in their social standings. He thought a lot about how anyone could survive when Middle Borough, when their entire town, when New fucking Jersey and the United States and Planet Fucking Earth offered so little worth living for.

Maybe that was the depression talking. Emily thought a lot about depression too and personality quizzes and how his personality seemed to shift so elusively that sometimes he thought he wasn't a person at all. He thought a lot about science fiction and pod people and wondered when a pin had been pricked into his soul and left him emptied out. It seemed to him that he could very easily blend in, if he just had someone telling him the rules in advance, that he could jump when told to jump and smile when told to smile and curtsy when the production was all done, and people would say he was charming and had a good personality, but the truth was, he didn't have much of a personality at all.

He also thought a lot about Michael Mell and how soft his thighs looked.

Because there he was. And Emily smiled, a smile unseen by Michael but tentatively returned by Jeremy. Jeremy Heere, 14, and Michael Mell, 14, names and ages cataloged and sometimes Emily thought about how people compared similarities, went up to each other and said "oh I loved that book too" or "did you see such-and-such movie" and he tried to figure out how he'd do the same with either of them. "Oh hi," he might say. "I'm a complete social fuckup too. Wanna be pals? Also I want to simultaneously lick belly buttons, Mikey, how about we do that?"

Probably not the best of opening lines. Even Emily had to know that.

Still, it was a start, right? And starting was half the battle.

Or for Emily, starting was the complete battle. Starting was everything. He kicked back against the lockers, and stared at the sad faces of his classmates. Stress about tests, or miserable home lives, or the fact that no one ever really could know another person, not really, and that was some stock philosophy bullshit, even a pseudo thinker like Emily knew that much.

It didn't stop him from feeling it though.

For now, he watched the way Michael bounced on his feet as he walked away. Half-engrossed in a story, waving his arms dramatically for emphasis.

And he remembered how Michael Mell had been outed last semester. Some sort of deviantart post found and printed by some upperclassmen in speech class. Emily hadn't taken the class, and hardly knew the original tormentor's names, and hadn’t read the post itself, but he remembered how everyone had talked about it. "Did you hear about the weird gay kid?" this or "Michael was totally staring at Jake Dillinger in the showers today." that.

"If I could be so lucky," Jake had laughed it off.

Because Jake was an understanding guy. And Emily knew that. So why couldn't he just ask him 'bro, can you maybe call me 'he' because I think there was some mix-up with my birth.'

It wasn't like everything else about Emily wasn't already completely and totally fucked, after all.

And maybe Jake could help him figure out a name, or how to say hello without second-guessing his own tongue, or how to tie a tie or how boy pants sizes worked because everyone said it was easier but it might as well have been hieroglyphics the few times Emily had managed to stray into department stores he couldn't afford. Maybe Jake could show him the right ways to walk and how to get that deep growl into his voice and-

It'd be easier if he just had a crush on Jake instead of wanting to actively be him. Emily felt his face tint just slightly at the suddenness of the full blown epiphany. To be Jake Dillinger, to have guys like Michael possibly maybe totally check you out in the shower, to walk around like you had a big dick because you totally DID have a big dick...

That was the sort of energy Emily Goranski needed in his life. Those were the problems facing him, and maybe some of them were self-made, but there had to be some sort of external strife bringing this along too.

Emily stuffed his hands into his pockets and pushed himself into the flow of traffic, towards home rooms and gyms and gossip and stress. Sometimes he didn't know if he wanted to grow up or if he wanted to die, but something needed to change before he found out.


	2. Get a Load of this Monster

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little bit of disjointed prose here, in an attempt to match the disjointed nature of Rich's mind during this scene. Consider this a sort of (VERY RAPIDFIRE) quick recap of Rich's mindset through squipdom.

Chapter 2: Get a Load of this Monster

Something changed.

Actually, several somethings changed. 

Including names. And wardrobe. And friends. And everything.

Sometimes he'd sit in his room and just repeat his name over and over into his mirror, some sort of demented Bloody Mary, except he was summoning himself. Rich Goranski. Rich Goranski. Rich Goranski.

It was like, if he didn’t keep saying it, if he didn’t keep an eye on it, his reflection would warp back into what it was before, or maybe he still wasn’t confident in the visage before him, like maybe everyone else saw a boy, but he saw some sort of crazed monster, a narcissus who hated the very reflection he couldn’t tear his gaze from.

Since getting a squip, he'd thought maybe he already had himself. Somedays were harder than others, though.

"I can't do this." He said. Not to no one in particular. 

To someone in particular.

His squip regarded him. Quietly assessing him. He didn’t need a mirror to spot the flaws in his reflections, didn’t need to repeat his name over and over and over and over again until the syllables no longer made any sense, because he’d ironed out the name in the first place. Ironed out Rich in the first place. Rich belonged more to his squip than he ever did to himself.

How fucked was that?

"Of course you can," He finally said. He didn't bother asking what it was Rich couldn't do. Maybe because there was so much he was incapable of, that his squip had to take the reins for. Or maybe because he was inside his mind, already knew exactly what was troubling Rich.

Even when Rich himself didn't know.

Rich frowned, staring at his own hands. What couldn't he do? What was he upset about right now?

He didn't know. And it only made his heart race faster.

"I can't do this." He repeated. And looked up at his mirror. That shimmer of features, that was himself. His jaw seemed too narrow, his lips too dainty, his eyelashes too long, and briefly he reached up, touching them, only for his squip to redirected his arm down.

"Don't," He said, and the tenderness of his voice scalded through his flesh.

And Rich wasn't sure why, but it made him want to cry more when he was kind than if he simply screamed at him. His lip wobbled, and his hands shook, and he couldn't meet his squip's eyes because that would mean facing another reflection--and how could something reflect when it was pure hallucination?

"I can't," Rich's voice cracked. And it was so high and scared and feminine. His hands formed into fists and he swallowed, trying to get past the lump in his throat, to clear the way for testosterone and masculinity and a cruelty that would keep anyone from ever hurting him. 

Instead, it was another one of those 'cry alone in his room' days. If he'd known he'd still have those, maybe he really should have traded in his life instead of trading in the entirety of his savings for a supercomputer that was too cruel to let him tear out his own eyelashes or cut off his tits or slit his damn wrists or

"Jesus, you're getting bleak," His squip said softly. "Look. We don't have to go to the party tonight, okay?"

Party. That was it. The party at Brooke’s summer villa. Rich had nearly forgotten the source of his anxiety in the midst of his attack. He nodded, slowly trying to regain his bearings, to loosen his own sense of impending doom, and the masochistic urge to surround himself in it, to douse himself in it like a fine spritz of desperation and gloom. A perfume custom built.

"We don't?"

"Of course not. I'd never make you do anything you don't want to do."

And Rich for a moment felt at home.

***

Moments were deceiving, fleeting and hopeless and sometimes Rich wanted to tear out his memories until he was nothing but moments that bleeped out of existence before he had a chance to analyze.

This was a different day. This was a different year. This was a different life, and he still scrambled at mirrors, a mantra of his name and his purpose and his life, this was his life, this was his life, this was his life

This was what he'd become.

And this, this exact moment, this deception, this was Jake's house. Jake's house. Jake, who he still thought it'd be easier to fall in love with. He couldn't bring himself to try anymore. He couldn't bring himself to look him in the eye, or maybe it was his squip directing his gaze elsewhere.

He felt dragged. What day was it? Where was he? Who was he? Who would he become?

There was a sense of knowledge that it'd be no one. A finality in these moments as he dragged himself into the garage, and grabbed the first object he could find. Red. Cold. And the liquid inside poured down his hair, his face, soaked into his shirt until it stuck, tacky, to his skin underneath.

Rich gasped, as the gasoline went up his nose and into his mouth, and he found himself on his knees, coughing and sputtering and closing his eyes so tight that colors sparked before his vision.

This wasn't what he was meant to be, he thought dimly, kneeling in the garage and coughing so hard that he tasted copper on the back of his tongue. 

Laughter filled his brain, a distant, external laughter internalized and captured within his own head. He cupped his own ears with his hands, a desperate whine escaping him. 

"I can't," He gasped out. He couldn't. Couldn't couldn't couldn't couldn't

Couldn't remember how he'd gotten inside. And if the Dillingers were around, surely they'd be upset at him for tracking gasoline footsteps onto pristine carpet.

Rich passed student after student after familiar face. Offered questions of Mountain Dew Red and a salvation he had never earned.

He passed Michael and Michael was beautiful and sad and he'd been crying he'd been crying he'd been crying he'd been crying and he tasted like skittles and home and he’d been crying and he wanted to dry his eyes and

Rich couldn't remember much after that. He'd poured himself into what had once been a playroom between himself and Jake. Jakey D and Millie G and Rich hated his old name his old self his old everything but sometimes he missed the way Jake had called him that, and it made him feel sick for missing any part of it. Fraudulent and incomplete.

The thing Rich would think about most though was how he'd gotten the matches. Why matches? Why not a lighter? His fingers were sticky and wet somehow at the same time, and he marveled at that a moment as he struggled with the stick. One stick. Two stick. Red stick. Blue stick. He smiled faintly, just a moment, more moments, as child nursery rhymes and bedtime stories played out. His mama used to read him those stories before she'd

The third match finally caught and he'd admired the flame before it began to consume his own hand. 

Consumption really was the right word for it. Fire had a way of eating at you, chewing through the gasoline until it was burrowing into his pores. Rich remained on his knees, as he felt the flames began to kiss his eyelashes, and burrow into his cheeks, and he felt his air suck free from him as the fire surrounded him in its completeness.

Ashes to ashes. He should have opened a window, let himself blow out to surround himself with the stars and the trees. He wanted to be a part of something for once.

The smoke detectors screamed as his mind faltered into stillness.


	3. 'Cause I Want You To Stay

Chapter 3: 'Cause I Want You to Stay

"Please stay."

The voice was so pathetic that Michael hardly realized he'd grabbed a chair. He'd only meant to stop by for a moment, to drop off flowers and give a few pat comments of sympathy, but as he'd dropped off the flora, he'd heard Rich stir, had turned around with a smile like he was an old friend, and Rich had actually managed to speak.

So he had no choice but to obey.

So he grabbed a chair.

So he sat. 

And so he pondered how it'd gotten to this. He could remember the fire. Oh, god, could he remember the fire, the nightmares crashing over him night after night until he'd started forgoing sleep completely in return for pipes and beating high scores on vintage cartridges that he had to blow the dust out of before putting in the machine.

Or maybe blowing did nothing, but it was a nice placebo. It made him feel like he was doing something useful.

Like this, he thought, as he sat before Rich Goranski and smiled even though the bandages crossing over his chest arms face (and probably more, but he couldn't see beneath his blankets) made his skin crawl.

It wasn't that it was an ugly sight. It was a sympathetic crawl, an itch deep into his bones. He couldn't imagine how it must feel for Rich, who was stuck within that skin on his own. He had no choice to simply slink down to the basement, hit his bong, and immerse himself in Donkey Kong.

Rich sucked in a breath, shaky and smokey and...smokey was not a good word to think, given the circumstances. But maybe it was exactly right. Were his lungs damaged? He'd seemed so damaged, lying out in the lawn waiting for medical attention. Jake, with his collapsed legs, and Rich with his collapsed everything.

He'd looked almost serene, at least at first. Michael hadn't been able to help but wonder what he'd been thinking about, and then he realized he could never live with knowing the answer to that.

Better instead to give himself a sense of absent peace with the knowledge that Rich hadn't suffered.

Except that wasn't true either. Because once he'd been roused, pulled onto a gurney and oxygen mask snapped into place, he'd cried. It hadn't been loud, and indeed it was hard to make out, but his tears had coursed through the ash on his body, leaving clean streaks down a blistered face in the midst of tarry black smoke.

Michael should have looked away, given him some modesty. But he'd stared. Stared and stared and stared some more.

It was the sort of thing he couldn't fathom. Suicidal thoughts weren't a foreign concept, he'd thought before of what it might be like, to fling himself into the void of nonexistence.

But to do it so painfully, and so publicly...

How badly must Rich have been hurting?

And maybe that was why he sat down when Rich asked--when Rich begged him to.

When he looked at him with those tear-swollen green eyes, clearly hopped up on morphine or maybe high off the pain itself, and Rich gasped out, "Please stay."

Rich's eyes fell half-lidded once he saw Michael sit down. They followed his every movement, though, even from their more relaxed viewpoint. Michael smiled faintly.

"I, um, hope you like sunflowers."

Rich's lips briefly twitched, as though to smile. He nodded faintly, only for his eyes to screw up in pain.

"Shit, um. Shit.”

What a cohesive, intelligent thing to say when someone was in clear distress.

"That was a stupid thing to...dude, just, um, let me get a nurse or something-"

"Fine." Rich wheezed, shaking his head the barest amount. "I mean...'s fine, bro."

Each word seemed more strained and broken than the last. Michael frowned.

"You sure?"

"Yes."

"Do you have a lisp or something?"

The question escaped him before he even considered how rude it might be. Or that right now was certainly not the time to question any sort of speech impediments that Rich may or may not have. But he was certain it was something he would have noticed before, something he might have picked up on. Or if not him, certainly the social elite would have torn him apart for it.

Rich's lips once more pulled into a brief half-smile, contorting the bandages just a moment in his brief sign of glee. "Yeah. Pretty sick, huh?"

The way he said sick was exaggerated, pink tongue flickering from between gapped teeth. He waggled it just slightly, enough to make Michael laugh in surprise. He stopped, hand briefly over his own mouth, as though his own laughter was obscene.

Rich looked at him with the sort of wonder that made Michael shift nervously in his chair. He looked down at his own hands, playing with a loose edge of fingernail.

"Well, I just, um." He looked up. "I wanted to make sure you were okay."

"'m okay."

"No, I mean, yeah, I knew you survived. But I just," Michael brushed his thumb over his fingernail, until it pricked against his skin. The ache seemed to wake him up, if only enough to remember where he was, why he was there. "I guess it was just sort of, um, scary."

"Sorry." Rich blinked. "You were still at the house?"

Michael looked at him oddly. "I was there when they pulled you out."

They'd held hands, Michael realized with a jolt. Or, rather, Michael had held his hand. If only for a moment. Jake had screamed for everyone to get back, his voice pitched with the sort of physical pain that his adrenaline rush wouldn't allow him to acknowledge.

And Michael hadn't obeyed. He'd stayed right there, Rich's hand in his own. It had been so warm, so humanly soft and alive and Michael had wanted to smooth his hair back and kiss his forehead and he still couldn't figure out what any of that was about, but he supposed it wasn't the sort of thing you asked someone when they were in the hospital with third degree burns.

Rich hadn't even been awake.

Rich didn't even remember it.

And Michael had never considered Rich like that, not really, but then-

His lips had been soft too. Soft and warm and alive, even as his eyes had danced with panic.

He wondered if he should ask if he remembered the kiss too. Because part of him thought it was a hallucination. It came up, sometimes, in the dreams. Rich had been heading off with purpose, and he'd caught Michael coming out of the bathroom. Caught him and asked for Mountain Dew Red and kissed him and-

"Mountain Dew Red." Michael said suddenly. 

Rich's eyes widened, and his face briefly contorted again, though it seemed less physical pain and more a haunting sort of dread.

"Mountain Dew--you were squipped too. You...green turns it on, red...holy SHIT." Michael scrambled out of his chair, scarcely hearing as it clattered on the ground. "Rich, I could kiss you."

Again.

"So you're a tell-and-kisser then," Rich managed weakly, though Michael had already swiveled on his feet.

"I'll be back later," He shouted back by way of promise. But the words were so offhand that he hardly realized he'd given them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of all, I want to thank everyone for all the lovely comments and kudos. It makes me immensely happy that this seems to be received decently. I was really terribly worried.  
> Second of all, some general comments about the chapter itself, and why it was from Michael's perspective instead of Rich's. While this doesn't have a straight alternating progression in perspectives, this story is just as much Michael's as it is Rich's, and as such, there will be the occasional stray in perspective to his end of things. I hope it didn't deter the reading experience too much for you.  
> Third of all, the timeline here is a little fucky, I realize. I was wondering how Michael learned about mountain dew red specifically--and yes, I know he spoke to his warcraft buddy online, but I personally got the impression that he just learned generally about the squip this way, not an actual method of stopping it. But I'll admit, I could have thought this through better, in terms of timeline and how he would have progressed from here to actually confronting Jeremy. Again, I hope this doesn't deter too much from enjoyment.  
> Fourth: the kiss. This is something that'll be explored more deeply in Smoke Signals, I'll admit. There's a reason I didn't mention it in the last chapter, though, as Rich truly does not remember it, despite initiating it. It'll be brought up again down the line, though, and expanded upon.  
> Anyway, there were probably other things to notate, but I cannot remember them now. I do hope you guys enjoyed this update though.


	4. Ups and Downs Highs and Lows

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cue the "falling in love in a hospital" montage. Annnnd go.

Chapter 4: Ups and Downs, Highs and Lows

Michael kept his promises. 

Each visit stacked on top of the next. Board games, card tricks, chocolates, obscure sodas.

"You have to at least try it," Michael laughed, as Jeremy watched with a knowing grin.

Rich swirled the bottle around, looking at the coloring with an odd sense of uncertainty. "Turkey cola?"

"It's from the Thanksgiving collection. 2007 I think."

"You want me to drink a decade old meat soda?"

"I don't want you to," Michael said. "I need you to."

"He demands you to," Jeremy corrected. He snorted, looking at Michael with an affectionate sort of disbelief. "Rich doesn't want to drink your meat, Michael."

"Au contraire, mon Queere, I absolutely, one thousand percent want to drink Michael Mell's meat."

It was worth saying things like that, to make Michael sputter and blush.

And worth drinking his disgusting meat fizz if only to earn that laugh.

He was starting to realize more and more how much he liked that damn laugh. 

It wasn't a pretty laugh. Not really. He tended to snort, and it was altogether too loud, but he seemed aware of it, covering his mouth more often than not as though he could capture it. Except there was something equally unashamed about it. Though he'd cover his mouth, he tended to throw his head back at the same time, eyes screwed shut behind his glasses, rocking against his feet if he was standing. 

He had the sort of laughter that made Rich's bones fill with fucking butterflies.

He was well beyond flutters in his stomach.

Being in the hospital wasn’t all bad. Actually, being in the hospital wasn’t bad, period. Especially once Jeremy showed up and the cops stopped showing up. He didn’t want to think about whether or not charges were being filed, whether or not he was destined for juvenile detention, or maybe full blown adult jail. Was he old enough for full blown adult jail? He certainly didn’t feel like a full blown adult, and it occurred to him that he might never feel like one. How did you transition like that?

You’d have thought Rich was an expert on transition, given all the ways he’d changed.

But he was starting to think maybe he was himself again. Some nights, he and Jeremy would stay up until dawn, just talking. Jeremy stuttering and Rich lisping and what a pair of neurotics they probably made.

Nothing was off limits. Squips. Insecurities. 

Maybe crushes were off limits. Certainly, Jeremy spoke about Christine. He lit up, a Christmas tree of absolute affection. It was sweet, if a little hopeless. But Rich offered his advice, the two years of squip-guided hookups and dry-humping in the back of friends’ cars finally amounting to something.

“Why wouldn’t she like you?” He’d say. “You’re a total stud.”

“Stud?”

“Stud.”

“No one in a million years is ever going to think or call me a stud.”

“Bro. Is it a million years? Because I just did.” Rich wanted to put his arms behind his head, to recline back, but his bandages were stiff, and his body ached with every movement, so instead he trained his eyes on the morning talk show set on their shared TV. “You just have to fake some confidence.”

“Tried that.”

“Not squippy confidence. Actual Jeremy Seinfeld confidence.”

Jeremy often laughed at that point, but it was such an inoffensive sort of laugh that Rich couldn’t even consider that it was an insult.

They also talked about Michael, and it was the sort of thing where Rich categorized every detail.

“-so we probably went through a thousand dollars in quarters that summer, and Michael still never beat that crane.”

“They’re such a fucking scam, dude!” Rich had said, and sorted into his internal filing system. Bad at skill crane. Hyperfocused on a task.

Stupidly cute. Cute cute cute cute cute.

Sometimes he considered the possibility that he was missing something. Like he’d forgotten some critical bit of data in the midst of the fire. Something about skittles and tears.

But he supposed it must not matter very much, because he couldn’t imagine forgetting anything about Michael. Not now that his eyes were fully opened.

He’d been so mean to him, while squipped. Locker shoves and sneers about his lack of a love life. Maybe no slurs about being gay, but he’d certainly called him a permavirgin more than once. Maybe it was too late. Maybe that was something you couldn’t come back from. But he wanted to try.

So he put on his best jokes, and tried to comb his hair despite the fact that even his scalp seemed to be burned. He tried to look good, but he didn’t dare look in a mirror to break his deluded self into the truth.

He had to be hideous. The pain mounted the further he healed, after each skin graft and subsequent infection. 

“It’s going to take time,” His doctors would say. 

Time enough, as it turned out, for Jeremy to be discharged. To go back to school. Sometimes he’d stop by, and they’d exchange advice about Christine or math class or talk about whatever book Rich was reading. Sometimes Jeremy would mention Michael, the funny thing he said or the frustrating way he’d obviously cheated at some game or other.

In all honesty, he could have told Rich that Michael had genocidal rages and Rich probably still would have found him cuddly and pure and lovably sweet.

Maybe that was too far. But Rich was beyond a point where he cared how far he’d gone.

Except when Michael visited. And then Rich found himself second-guessing every joke, every comment, every action. Michael would sit on the edge of his bed, and they’d share a mediocre cup of hospital frozen yogurt, and Rich would watch the way the melted cream would linger on Michael’s lips before he’d lick it away.

“I’m just saying,” Rich said, swirling his spoon in the cup. “Next Gen is...eh. It’s okay. Picard is okay. Data is pretty hot-”

“Hot?”

“Androids are fucking hot, bro. Imagine you, but metal. Good shit.”

Michael’s skin shouldn’t have been able to glow so fully, but his blush was clear. “Shut up,” He smiled.

“It’s true! Next Gen had a few okay elements, but it’s too cluttered. Give me the OG any day of the week. Kirk, wreck my anus. Spock, you get yourself in line.”

“I didn’t know you were a total sci-fi dork.”

“Uh, Star Trek is totes mainstream now, sooo where the fuck have you been?”

“You say mainstream, I say total dorksville, my man.”

Rich stuck out his tongue, only to lick at some of the lingering fro-yo on his spoon. “Thanks for visiting.” He tried to sound casual, but his voice came out too soft.

Michael’s expression seemed to melt. “Of course I came.”

“No, like, you know. You’re my only visitor.”

That same gentle expression flipped just as quickly. “None of your friends came to see you? Superficial, callous, stupid-”

“I won’t let them.” 

“What?”

“I, um. I talked to the nurses, and I told them...I told them no visitors.”

The question marks floated and popped over Michael’s head. “But I’m a visitor.”

“Well, see, you can have exceptions, so I told them...I mean, it’s okay if you come. You already know I look like…” He trailed off, waving his hand over his face.

“Oh please. Stupidly chiseled?”

Rich wanted to refute him, but compliments from Michael settled so nicely that he beamed, stuffing his face with a large bite of dessert to keep from saying anything even stupider.

“Why don’t you want visitors?”

“Told you. Ugly.”

“Not ugly. But, I mean, aren’t you lonely?”

Of course he was. “Nah man, that’s for gays.”

“Aren’t you “totally bi”? I think that’s what Jeremy said.”

“Ooh, I see, you and the Country Bear Jerboree sit around talking about ol’ Tricky Dick’s sex life.”

“No, he just said--Tricky Dick? That’s a new one--he just said you had a big gay realization or something,” Michael placed his spoon in his mouth, flipped and uneven, taking a long moment to swallow the contents. He drew it out with a pop, and Rich’s insides burned with how dumbly hot such a simple action was. “Don’t you want to see Jake?”

“No.” The backs of his eyes ached. “Is he okay?”

“Jake? Oh, yeah. I’m sure he’s going to be getting his casts off soon. I mean, I don’t really talk to him, so I don’t know for sure, but-”

“I burned down his house.”

“Rich-”

“I burned down my best friend’s house. I can’t see him.”

His body felt cold, despite the baptism of flames that still woke him up at night. He sank lower in the bed, eyes turned away from Michael.

“Rich, I’m sure he’d unders-”

“I need to sleep.” Rich winced at his own tone, looking back over at Michael, all big brown eyes and sympathetic frown. “But, um, tomorrow, can you come by? You can rent out consoles here and maybe you can kick my ass at a fighting game or something.”

Michael brushed his hand over Rich’s. “It’ll be my honor, finishing you.”

Rich’s lips quirked into a smirk. “That’s what she said.”

“You’re the worst,” Michael said. But laughed. Laughed so sweetly that surely something Rich was doing had to be working.


	5. Like Autotune Loves T-Pain

Chapter 5: Like Autotune Loves T-Pain

Jake Dillinger sat beside Rich's bed and smiled that impossible Jake Dillinger smile, 1000 watts of pure all American bewilderment and acceptance.

"There's nothing to forgive, dude."

And absurdity. 1000 watts of pure all American bewilderment, acceptance, and total fucking absurdity. Because there was no logic at all in him saying anything like that.

Rich fiddled with his fingers. He fiddled and swallowed and changed tactics.

It wasn't that he necessarily wanted him to think otherwise. But this made no sense.

"How'd you get in?"

"Through the door."

Rich frowned. "I'm serious. I said-"

"No visitors, yeah, I know. I told them I was Michael. Weird that you're letting Michael see you and not me, by the way-"

"You told them you were Michael?" The name only made everything less clear, a honey glaze over his brain.

"Yeah, bro. He told me to."

"Who?"

"Michael."

Rich's heart pattered, his palms clammy. Not for the first time, he wanted to tear off his bandages, and tear off the skin underneath, and pray that something better, more human, more lovable, would grow over his skeleton.

Or that he'd just die. Dying seemed preferable to this.

Of course, that was the mindset that had gotten him into this mess to begin with.

And regardless, it was all melodrama. Why should he want to tear himself up just because his two favorite people were talking?

Who the hell did he think he was to claim Michael as a favorite person? After all he'd put him through, after only really getting to know him under these circumstances? It wasn't right. Rich wasn't right. As usual.

"You talk to Michael?"

"I've talked to him. He seems okay."

"You're seriously going to need to talk more about this, dude. Michael told you to impersonate him?"

"That's why I'm wearing the hoodie."

"Huh?"

"The hoodie, bro."

Rich had been so preoccupied with Jake's wheelchair that he hadn't bothered to assess Jake's actual ensemble. Normal jeans, normal shoes, normal-

Not-so-normal.

Because it wasn't just a standard issue red hoodie. He was wearing-

"He gave you his jacket?"

"Pretty sweet, right?"

The jacket was simultaneously too large and too small on Jake's body, too short to properly fit his torso, but bagging around the arms and the chest. Michael was thicker than Jake, even if Jake was more developed in muscles. Rich regarded him, the patches and the drawstrings that seemed to have been gnawed raw. A nervous habit, perhaps--Rich had noticed him sucking on the end of one briefly, when he'd thought Rich had fallen asleep.

If it was a nervous habit, though, what was it about Rich that made him nervous?

He supposed Michael had plenty of reasons to distrust him. Lord knew he hadn't been the kindest to him when he'd been squipped.

And there was the guilt again, hot and pulsing, and Rich looked at the spokes of Jake's wheelchair, and the casts around both of his legs, heavily scrawled with signatures.

"Jake," A lump formed in his throat. "Jake, I ruined your life."

"What?"

"I ruined your-"

"I heard you." Jake's voice came out small. He rolled forward, grabbing one of Rich's hands. "I'm going to get out of these soon enough, you know."

"I burned down your house."

Rich's voice tore. Tore and blistered and popped, and he started to sob. His own heavily bandaged arms had little room, despite his urge to cover his face in his hands. Jake hadn't seen him cry since freshman year. Before the squip, before Rich had even been Rich, and he didn't want him to remember those days by association. He didn't want to go back to that person, that life, but here he was, crying when he had no right to tears. He wasn't the one suffering. He was the one who caused suffering.

Because Jake's legs were crushed, and even if he got out of his casts, he'd still require intensive therapy to get back even half of his earlier mobility, surely. And he'd probably never play football again. And his house...his fucking house.

"You're homeless and I ruined your future!"

"You're so melodramatic sometimes, Rich." He reached up, brushing the hair from Rich's forehead, his thumb brushing over his forehead. "I'm fine."

"No," Rich shook his head. "You're not fine. You're not fine. I-"

"You were in a terrible place, and I should have realized it sooner. If anyone should be sorry, it's me." Jake's expression grew somber. "Rich. You tried to kill yourself."

"No-"

"Yes. Yes you did. And I didn't know. I had no idea. I was so busy...fuck, Rich. All the parties and the...talking to you about my stupid crushes and sexploits and...god, I'm the worst."

Rich blinked through his haze of tears, just enough to realize that Jake's blurred eyes weren't a result of his own tears, but Jake's. Jake sucked in a shuddery breath, forcing a smile, as he grasped Rich's hand with both of his own. Mindful of the bandages, the tender skin that kept finding new ways to bring infection and delayed release.

"You should hate me."

"Jake, that's fucking stupid."

"It's true though. Friends are supposed to know these things."

"No, friends are supposed to, you know, not pull arsonist bullshit in each other's houses."

"Yeah, well," Jake shrugged. "I like the cabin more anyway."

Jake said cabin as though it were a quaint building in the woods, not a suburban mcmansion that happened to be designed to look like wood, sitting on the sort of crystalline lake that poets bled their words for.

It was pretty sweet, was the point.

How had Rich forgotten that the Dillingers owned multiple properties. "It is a pretty great cabin."

"I know, right?" Jake chuckled. His thumb pet the back of Rich's hand. "I don't hate you. I couldn't hate you. You should know that by now, dude."

"I should know," Rich paused, sniffling pathetically. Everything, in fact, about this was pathetic. But he laughed, "I should know why the hell you decided to wear Michael's jacket."

"Oh! To be stealth, dude."

"You look nothing like Michael."

"So?"

"So wearing his jacket isn't going to change that fact." Rich felt a twinge of jealousy, the urge to wrap himself up in faded cloth, to run his fingers over every patch, to suck on the same strings that Michael's lips had touched--maybe that last one was too far. Definitely too far. Bordering on disgusting, but Rich couldn't feel anything but pulsing adoration. "All you had to do was give his name."

"Not nearly as much fun."

"Are you like, gay for Michael or something? Oh, by the way, I'm like, half gay. I forgot to mention that to you."

Why the hell had he said that? Either of those 'that's. The idea of Jake having a thing for Michael made his guts clench, and his coming out should surely have been more eloquent than such an offhand comment.

Jake snorted. "Yeah. I figured."

"You figured?"

"You're sort of moon-eyed over that Michael dude, dude."

Rich sucked in a sharp breath. "Yeah, well, consider this: no."

"Consider this: yes."

"Consider this: suck my dick."

"Is that the bi coming out?"

Rich pushed himself upright, grabbing his pillow from behind his head and flinging it at Jake.

Big mistake.

"Oh, it's on now." Jake grinned wickedly, as he grasped the pillow between both hands and, like cocking a gun, fluffed it once, twice, then began swinging it at Rich's body.

The shrieks and laughs from the room alerted the nurse, who promptly shut down such tomfoolery and horseplay. And Rich forgot to feel guilty for the rest of the afternoon.


	6. Were I The Last Girl On Earth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I went ahead and bumped the fic up to Mature just to be safe because of this chapter. This isn't particularly graphic, but I'd still classify it as not safe for work, so all you employed and schoolbodied folks: just, like, be aware. There's dick touching in this.

Chapter 6: Were I The Last Girl On Earth

With his jacket returned, Michael supposed he could return back to his normally broadcasted life. That would have made the most sense, after all. Back to the daily grind of beating high scores and creating spotify playlists and increasing his ever growing record collection. Maybe get another stick-and-poke and call it a good end of summer.

How had the school year ended so quickly? One minute, it was the mid-year play. The next, the temperature was spilling into mid-90s, his slurpee cravings had increased ten fold, and Jeremy was off having some whirlwind summer romance with Christine.

It wasn't that Michael was jealous.

It wasn't that Michael was jealous.

It wasn't that Michael was jealous.

He figured it he repeated it often enough, it would come true, and he'd be a better friend for it.

Christine was nice. Christine was nice and pretty and quirky and everything that Jeremy deserved in a girl.

She also happened to be-

"Gay," Jeremy threw his backpack, full of movies he'd brought over to marathon for the afternoon, across the room, and scraped both fingers through his hair in frustrated anxiety.

"What?"

"Christine. She's...god, don't make me say it again, Michael."

"No, I really don't...I don't think I understand, dude. Christine isn't-"

"She is! She's like you."

Michael's face burned. "I think I'd have known if-"

"I'd think I'D have known if she was, at least before this. I thought she was my girlfriend."

"You've spent nearly every day together. You...she was wearing your cardigan. She signed your yearbook 'with love'. She's not gay. She-"

"-said she thought we were just friends."

"I mean, wouldn't you have known if you were just friends? You two were, like, you know." Michael's voice grew smaller, the words painfully shaken from his voice. "Like, doing it and stuff, right?"

Jeremy's silence screamed through the room. Michael let out a low whistle.

"All these months, not doing anything, and-"

"We never even kissed, alright? You happy?"

"No."

Maybe a little. But Jeremy seemed downtrodden enough that he dared not rub it in.

"I'm sure she's not gay."

"She was talking about how cute the...how cute the girl, at pinkberry, was. And I don't know if she meant the cashier or Brooke, but...god, Michael. I thought she really liked me."

Michael waited for him to burst into tears, or throw himself into Michael's arms, or otherwise make a spectacle out of his grief.

He tried to convince himself he wasn't a bad friend for wanting that so badly. But there was something selfish there, right? Craving the ability to comfort Jeremy, when he was so distraught?

Selfish.

"Girls say other girls are cute all the time."

"She asked if she should try to get her number."

"Girls, uh, well, that's hard for me to spin, Jer, I'm not going to lie to you."

"What am I supposed to do about this?" Jeremy's hands left his hair, as he flopped dramatically onto the unoccupied beanbag chair beside Michael. His arm moved to cover his eyes, his other hand moving as he continued to gripe. "I don't want to be one of those weirdo friendzone creeps, but this seriously sucks."

"It sucks."

"It does!"

"Jer, there's going to be other girls."

"No there aren't. Not like Christine."

"Well," Michael hesitated. "Maybe, you know, a girl isn't what you need."

He hardly realized the words were coming until they were already out of his mouth. His skin burned, his teeth digging into his lip. And he was grateful, for the positioning of Jeremy's arm, that he wasn't able to see how deeply the blush lingered on otherwise dark skin.

"What do you mean?"

"Um. Maybe, you know, this is your chance to experiment."

"Oh. Because Christine's gay, I should be gay too?"

"No, no, that's not what...I mean, you know, maybe what you're looking for is right in front of you."

Jeremy shifted against the bag, his arm tentatively shifting away from his eyes. "Huh?"

"It's just, I mean, she's kind of a fool, not to see you like that."

"Because she's a lesbian."

"Maybe. Or maybe she's confused. Or pansexual. Or, I don't know, maybe she was letting you down easy."

"She acted like she never even considered us together. I thought, I mean, after the play--she said we were going out, she said she wanted to go out. Do you think she thought I was a girl?"

The sudden pitch of anxiety caused a laugh to bubble within Michael's throat. He trapped it, knowing there wasn't anything funny about Jeremy's crisis.

Still, it was such an asinine thought. "No, I doubt she thought you were a girl, dude."

"What if though?"

Michael rolled his eyes, slipping his hand between Jeremy's legs. "Doesn't feel like a girl to me."

His hand was between Jeremy's legs.

His hand was between Jeremy's legs.

His hand was between Jeremy's legs.

And at first he thought he was repeating it to make it true.

Until he realized it was already true.

And then he supposed he was repeating it to try to take away the truth. Michael gasped in tandem with Jeremy, whose body stiffened, but didn't recoil.

Michael did, though, yanking his hand back. It hovered inches away, as Jeremy grasped his wrist.

"You, uh, you don't have to stop."

"What?"

"You can...you can...f-fuck. You can, um. You know."

Michael gawked at Jeremy. Then looked down at his jeans, at his crotch. Jeremy's hand tugged faintly at his hand.

"I think, uh, I think it might be good for...guh, I don't know, I can't say it."

"It might be good," Michael said slowly. "To help you forget. To help you-"

"Get over it?"

"Yeah. Get over your gay not-girlfriend."

"Yeah. Like, just a couple of friends-"

"Right, a couple of friends-"

"Just helping each other out."

"Right!" Michael nodded. "Like friends do."

"Yeah," Jeremy cleared his throat. "And if I have to do it with a guy, you know, it's better if it's you."

Michael's heart pounded so hard that it reverberated in his ears. He tried to hear through the cloudy unsteadiness of his own pulse. "Yeah, what are friends for?"

"Right."

"Right." Michael rubbed the back of his head with his free hand, as the other settled back down against Jeremy. "And you'd do the same for me."

"I will do the same for you."

"Y-yeah?"

"Yeah. I think I...you know, I've touched my own enough, I can probably-"

"Yeah."

"Yeah."

"Y-yeah. Good."

"Sw...swell."

"Coolio."

"Neat."

They laughed, as Michael's fingers squeezed his cock, through the coarse material of his pants. He shivered, as Jeremy let out a weak moan.

"I still can't believe she's gay though." Michael mused, as he began to unzip Jeremy's pants.

"Yeah," Jeremy moaned. "Me neither."

There was a lot not to believe about this, Michael thought as he drew out Jeremy’s cock in a hallelujah chorus of holy adulation and angel tears. But maybe if he didn’t think too hard about it, about Christine or the curve of his best friend’s dick in his hand or the rapidly accelerating sacrilegious desires in his soul, he wouldn’t have to worry about breaking.


	7. I Wanna Be Your Favorite Boy

Chapter 7: I Wanna Be Your Favorite Boy

"This is total balls, dude."

Jake folded his hands into his pockets and looked at Rich with a slight smile. "Yeah, orientation is a drag."

Rich itched with that familiar urge to rip through his own skin. Just like he was back in the hospital again.

And god did he wished he was back in the hospital. There was something comfortable about familiar meals, easy schedules, IV drips, cute nurses

Cute Michaels...

Rich rubbed the back of his neck, rubbing rather than scratching to avoid the continued urge to plug his fingernails into his dermis and find what was underneath. The hideous scarring, pink and raw and blaring, certainly didn't help his mounting discomfort.

Maybe Jake didn't look at him like he was a monster. But Rich wasn't an idiot.

He'd gone to the store. He'd seen the cashiers' gawking, the customers' muttered commentaries. Everything, every stare, every comment, every averted glance, seemed to be magnified. Amplified.

Funny. He'd wanted attention, when he'd first gotten a squip. Wanted people to look at him, and see The Real Richard Goranski.

And now he really was The Real Richard Goranski. Scarred and broken and brittle and highly combustible.

And everyone looked. Everyone could see.

All he wanted to do was hide away.

It was pretty pathetic. Or, as he'd put it-

"Balls, Jake. Complete, total ballmagedeon." His hand formed into a fist, waving around dramatically. "See this? These are the balls, and this is the earth," He held up his other fist. "And," he circled one fist closer, closer, "here's the balls, just looming nearer and nearer, until they're caught into our orbit and BAM." He slammed his fists together. "Ballsaster."

"Pretty nutty, dude, I gotta say." Jake said dryly.

Rich giggled, if only faintly. Nutty. "Good one, bro."

Jake smiled. "You're going to be fine. No one's going to say anything."

"Of course they won't. You're here with me. But they'll be thinking it."

"So?"

"So...so maybe I don't want to be a freakshow or, I don't know, maybe I just want to drop out or something. They probably won't let me graduate anyway, with how much school I missed last year."

"We'll figure that out if it comes to that."

"I mean, if I'm going to flunk out anyway, I should just not go, right?"

"Nope."

"Uh, yup, dude. Yup."

"Sounds fake, bro."

"I'm serious, Jake. Dude. I'm already going to...god, this lisp, this skin, the fire-" he watched the way Jake's expression briefly tensed. Talking about the fire wasn't a good idea, Rich decided, reeling it back. "Anyway, I just, you know, I don't want to go back to the bottom of the rung. You know? For two years there, I was..." he trailed off, taking in a shuddery breath. "For two years, I was a real dick. A real fucking dick. But people, like, they liked me, you know? And I just..."

"They're still going to like you."

"No they won't." Jake was already pulling Rich, taking their conversation distraction as a means to lead him towards the building. Rich's heart rattled anxiously in his chest, but he allowed the lead to continue. "They're going to hate me. Everyone is going to-"

"Rich!" The lilting pitch of the voice was so familiar as to be incomprehensible, a flash of blonde hair bouncing, and then the warmest arms he'd ever identified wrapping around him. Rich stiffened, seeing Jake separate back from the corner of his eye. The hug intensified around him, Rich's arms slowly raising up to cautiously pat the girl on the back.

Brooke drew back, her hands on his shoulders, eyes bright as she looked down at him. "I tried to call you, like, 5000 times. Chloe said you probably transferred."

"And I said," Jenna chirped, "that if you were to transfer, you'd have told me."

"Or me," Brooke frowned. "You would have said something, right? If you were dropping out, or moving, or dead-"

"He wouldn't be able to say anything if he was dead, Brooke."

"Oh, right."

"Not dead," Rich finally unstuck his tongue from the roof of his mouth. "Just-"

"OMG, your voice. Did you burn your tongue too?" Jenna exclaimed. She reached forward, pinching his chin between her fingers. She turned his face first one way, then the other, analyzing him carefully. "They kind of look good on you," She finally said. "You're like...I don't know, like an action hero or something."

"Sam Rockwell looked sooo good with the burns in that one movie of his."

"Sam Rockwell is so hot."

"Totally hot!"

They seemed to sigh in tandem, and Rich could do little else but gawk at them. These girls, who had only befriended him after he'd gotten a squip, they had every right to other him, to find him deceitful or disturbing or-

"What's wrong, Rich?" Brooke asked. "You keep looking at us, like, like you're-"

"You totally thought we'd hate you, didn't you?" Jenna snickered. "Puhlease, Rich. You've been the hot topic of the town for almost 10 months now."

"Jenna," Brooke nudged her. "Hot topic is a bad choice of words."

"Because he's an edgelord emo?"

"No, like, hot? What else is hot?"

"Me?"

"Besides you."

"...oh. OH! Shit, Rich, you know I wasn't talking about the fire, right?"

"More offended that you called me an emo," Rich smiled, his ears warmed with his own flustered contentment.

"With that hairdo, can you blame me?"

"Good point." Rich ran his fingers through his hair. "Hard to believe this shit wasn't burned off in the flames, huh?"

Jake even managed a smile at the comment, despite his abject discomfort at all discussion of the fire. Or maybe it was relief that Rich was no longer sulking and procrastinating.

The cluster of incoming seniors found their way into the main foyer of the building, tables set up to collect schedules and sign up sheets to speak to advisers and collection areas to pay fees for yearbooks, activity cards, club dues, and so on. The school felt heavy with bodies, and eyeballs, and Rich tried to remind himself that he was already doing better than he expected.

At least Brooke and Jenna were talking to him.

At least Jake was still his best friend.

Rich tried to tell himself that was all he needed. It was an improvement on life that he surely hadn't earned. The freaky arsonist who'd ruined his best friend's home and legs and athletic prospects--casts off or not, he'd certainly caused lasting damage. The asshole who'd introduced squips to countless others for monetary gain, who'd introduced Jeremy Heere and nearly caused a complete schoolwide infestation and--

There was Jeremy right there. Rich hadn't seen him since Jeremy had been discharged from the hospital. He hesitated only a moment, before raising his hand, drawing attention. Jeremy turned his gaze away from the teacher he was currently speaking to, his eyes brightening if only briefly, before his hand returned a more enthusiastic wave.

"Hey, Rich," He chirped as Rich pulled himself away from the girls and Jake. "I heard you got out."

"Yeah? How?"

"Michael."

Rich's chest felt full at the sound of his name. "Oh yeah?"

"Yeah, he said you got out last month. How do you like it?"

"I mean, there's considerably less jello out in The Real World, registered trademark, but it's okay I guess."

He didn't mention the fact his father had immediately dismissed any form of psychological counseling recommended by the doctors. Or how his brother liked to prod at his burns until he cried.

Because crying was for girls.

'are you a girl, Rich?'

Absolutely not. No, he wasn't going to give any sort of ammo like that to anyone. Even if Jeremy had been exceptionally kind to him in the hospital. More than a bad influence, an evil influence, like Rich deserved.

"Yeah, it's like...um, it's some conspiracy or something. Big Pudding keeping the jello out of the homes or, you know, something."

"Right?" Rich laughed, and immediately forced it to taper down. The more he laughed, the more others stared, and...fuck, why did he have to care about that right now? He almost missed his squip, if only for the jolt of advice that he didn't need to care what anyone thought.

Of course, if his squip was there, Rich wouldn't have been speaking to Jeremy. And Rich wanted to speak to Jeremy.

"How are you doing, though, man?"

"Oh, well." Jeremy shrugged. "Okay, I guess."

"Okay?"

"Okay." He watched as Jeremy squirmed, lips pressing together in the tight way of someone who didn't want to admit something.

"Is-"

"So Christine is gay."

Jeremy's eyes widened as soon as he said it, his hand going up to his own mouth as he shook his head.

"I didn't' mean to-"

"Yo, what?"

"I didn't mean...shit, Rich, she...that was confidential and, um, that wasn't something I should have said. You can't-"

"Christine isn't gay."

"She told me," Jeremy kept his hand over his mouth, muffling his words. "Or, she said she liked girls, or a girl, or, I don't know, either way. It's okay. I'm over it."

Said the boy who clearly wasn't over it.

"Aw, Seinfeld. That sucks, bro."

"It's not the best, that's for sure." Jeremy's hand fell away. He laughed shakily. "The good thing is, I mean, at least it made me and Michael closer."

"What do you mean?"

"Um."

Rich's chest fluttered, his stomach aching with a dull sort of nerves. "...what do you mean?"

"Nothing, just...you know, friend stuff. He's been really comforting with this whole thing, I guess."

"Comforting?"

"Yeah."

Rich eyed him oddly, but allowed it to drop. Somethings you just didn't need the details to. "Is your whole big post-hospital story arc Christine related?"

"I mean, I marathoned every David Lynch movie last week."

"Every-"

"Not every. Just the good ones. Just...okay, so I watched Eraserhead, like, 30 times in a row last week, is that what you wanted to hear?"

"That is exactly what I wanted to hear." Rich snorted. "You, my friend, are a total fucking dork."

"At least it wasn't hours of Jeopardy."

"Hey man, I can't help what the hospital cable broadcasts, now, can I?"

"I think you're just bi for Alex Trebek."

"It's that voice, Jeremiah Flintstone. It's that gorgeous mustachioed voice."

"...Flintstone? What's the connection there?"

"I liked how the syllables felt, that's really all there was to it."

"I can't believe they cut Music Theory just because only 2 people signed up for it," Michael was the sort to drop himself into a conversation without any sort of preambles. It was a fact Rich had noticed in the hospital--Michael entering the room with a conversation halfway started already on his lips, without so much as a hello.

It was oddly charming, and disarming in the nicest of ways. And hearing Michael's voice, after nearly a month outside of hospital curtains and monitors, felt disorienting and electric. Rich's pulse pattered eagerly, his gaze moving from Jeremy to Michael.

"I told you they wouldn't keep it," Jeremy dished out an "i told you so" with the sort of sympathy of someone who wanted to immediately shovel it back down. "What'd they put you in instead?"

"Auto shop," Michael spoke with such derision that Rich couldn't help but laugh. "What?"

"You said it like they put you in Genocide 101."

"They may as well have." Michael shook his head, backtracking. "No, okay, it's not that bad. But really, what do I, a queer brown boy with the body of a kumquat, have in common with a bunch of wrenchhumping white supremacists?"

"Okay, one, what does a kumquat even look like?"

"Me, I guess," Michael fiddled with the cord of his headphones. "I don't know. It just sounds round."

"I actually think they're kind of small, right? And orange?" Jeremy uptalked his confusion.

"Wait, a kumquat is a real thing?" Rich said in disbelief. "I thought it was, like, a fairytale fruit or something."

"No, I'm pretty sure they're real. Maybe." Michael seemed uncertain.

"I like that it has the word 'cum' in it. Cum-quat. Kinky."

Michael's lips quirked upward. "Of course that's what you'd fixate on. Filthy kinkster."

"The filthiest."

"The quattiest."

"Quattiest!" Rich's voice hitched in shocked glee. "The kumquattiest, the filthiest, the kinksteriest kumquat fetishist of them all."

"Heere, please come with me," one of the school counselors popped her head out of the office. Jeremy grimaced, but offered a nod to his friends, before going off in her direction.

Rich tried to ignore the way Michael's gaze followed him, the attention with which Jeremy was so easily able to hold him.

It didn't mean anything. It didn't have to mean anything at all.

"I'm in auto shop, you know." Rich pointed out. "That was, like, my point number two."

Michael blinked, his eyes widening after in realization. "Oh! Oh, Rich, shit, dude, I didn't mean anything by...I know you're not a white supremacist wrenchhumper-"

"I polish my wrench with my confederate flag every night before I bed him, thank you very much."

"...you have a gay wrench?"

"You know it. We're in homosexuals with each other."

"Homosexuals?"

"Yes we are."

Michael smiled the sort of smile of someone trying to fight his own amusement. "Sounds beautiful."

"Yeah, it's pretty great."

"I saw you came here with Jake." Michael's fingers moved to the drawstrings of his hoodie. Perhaps in memory of loaning it out, or perhaps out of nerves, or perhaps just out of idle habit. A month apart had softened Rich's ability to pick out his every habit. "So things are okay with him?"

"Yeah, they're fucking rad, dude! I knew they would be."

"Uh huh."

"Well...you knew they would be, anyway, and that's practically the same thing."

"Naturally."

"You look good, by the way. You're all aglow."

"Huh?" Michael's face colored. "Stop. I look like hot garbage, what are you on about?"

"No, I'm serious. Something's different. Jeremy has that 'my boo is a dyke' shame to his gait, but you look like you've had the summer that they make blockbusters out of. Or some shit. I'm trying to sound poetic here, but you look really good.'

He did look good too. Happy. Rich wasn't sure how anyone could attain that level of joy, but whatever it was, he wanted to bottle it up, to give to Michael whenever he felt down again. He didn't deserve to feel down.

God, why was Rich such a sap? Michael was wearing a hoodie in 100 degree summer weather, and smiling like his secrets were giving him warm hugs, and all Rich wanted to do was bundle him up in more layers of joy so he'd never know another rainy day again.

Maybe absence really did make the heart grow fonder. Or maybe it was something in the Middle Borough air.

And it occurred to Rich that since Michael had shown up, he'd forgotten to feel any self-consciousness about anyone's eyes on him. What did it matter, as long as Michael was looking?

"It's just been a nice couple weeks, I guess." Michael mused slowly. He circled the string around his finger. "And it's nice seeing you too, I guess. You could have told me you were being released, you know. I would have visited you at home."

Rich swallowed the comments about his disgusting home, how little he wanted anyone visiting there. Because it didn't matter. The sentiment was true regardless. Michael still wanted to spend time with him, even outside of medical obligations.

"Yeah, we could have flown a kite or gone skinny dipping or something."

"Are those your only two summer activities?"

"Yeah. Sometimes I mix them up though. You ever go naked kiting? Not a good idea, bro."

There was that laugh. Rich hadn't expected to feel so invincible, here of all places. But Michael was the balm he hadn't realized he'd needed.


	8. Just a Fool to Keep Chasing After Nothing Great

Chapter 8: Just a Fool To Keep Chasing After Nothing Great

Welcome to another edition of Michael Mell and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Idea.

Jeremy giggled, as Michael's lips moved over his neck. He tasted like caffeine and cinnamon roll icing, sticky and sweet, and Michael brushed his nose along the curve of his throat as though to envelope himself further in his flavor.

"Too much?"

"No." Jeremy said breathlessly. His fingers scrambled at the back of Michael's hoodie. "It's not bad. Just kinda...kinda ticklish."

He squealed as Michael began to tease his collarbone with his teeth. Michael felt his body move, the way his legs spasmed for a moment, before wrapping around his waist. He loved Jeremy's legs. Long and spindly and soft. He loved how they felt around his own thicker frame. He wanted to be framed by Jeremy's legs for the rest of his life.

The change in position left him pressed flush against his body. Michael ached with the urge to grind against him. To consume him completely. He drew away from his neck, his glasses fogged and leaving the edges of Jeremy's body hazy.

Jeremy was beautiful. Beautiful in the way that a Van Gogh painting had to have been back in the day, unappreciated and a little off kilter and Michael would have cut off every ear on his body, all two of them, just to earn another moment like this.

Jeremy tangled his fingers in Michael's hair. He looked up at him softly, face flushed, as their lips met.

It was nice. It felt so nice. Soft and warm and safe and it was the worst idea of Michael's life, giving in so easily to this.

He knew it was a bad idea. He knew that the seems were sure to unravel and they'd hate themselves in the aftermath. He knew that they weren't boyfriends, that this wasn't some teen romance brought to life.

They'd make out for awhile--maybe longer than awhile, if Jeremy kept tasting so sweet--and then they wouldn't talk about it, instead giggling a little nervously and grabbing their subsequent controllers and launching into their dual roles with a sense of obligation and persistence.

But oh, knowing it was a bad idea didn't make Michael any less weak to it.

Jeremy wasn't a perfect fit to his body. They didn't feel like two pieces of the same puzzle, didn't buzz with a soulmate hum of completion when they found themselves in each other's arms.

But he made him happy. He made him happy even as every bit of Michael's mind screamed to back out now, before they went too far. It wasn't that Jeremy was using him--or maybe that was it. Jeremy was using Michael to ignore Christine, and Michael was using Jeremy to...what? Maybe that was it, full stop. He was using Jeremy. Knew it wasn't anything serious, and still pinned him to cloudy beanbag chair each afternoon and bit his lip and slid his hand under his shirt and claimed what had never, and would never, be his own.

It was so depressing if he actually let himself think about it.

So Michael didn't think. He touched and he kissed and he caressed and Jeremy moaned his name as though they were the only syllables he'd ever craved, and for awhile he'd forget that it was wrong. 

Maybe it was some sort of weird incest aversion making him feel uneasy about the whole thing, he wondered

Or, rather, Rich wondered for him, as the whole sordid affair spilled from Michael's lips one average Tuesday afternoon.

"I mean," Rich said--and Michael couldn't remember when he'd started eating lunch with him, but it was nice, especially on days like this where Jeremy was out sick--and stole a french fry from Michael's tray. He hesitated a moment, holding it halfway to his mouth. "Can I have this?"

"Yeah."

"Cool. So I mean," he popped the fry in his mouth, "You've known him since you were, what, six?"

"Five."

"Five. Jesus Christ. That's a long time."

"Haven't you known Jake about that long?"

"Yeah, but it's weird hearing someone else having a friendship that long lasting. And I'm not fucking Jake."

Michael's face flushed, as he glanced around anxiously, as though expecting someone to crawl up and overhear. Maybe not someone. Maybe something. His own anxiety prying into the conversation and reminding him that Jeremy wasn't his to claim.

"I'm not fucking Jeremy, either."

"Dry humping, blowing, whatever. Just because it's not full blown buttsex doesn't mean it's not gay, my friend. Aristotle. He's the quote source for that. 'Thou needn't bugger in order to homo' I think is the actual Latin translation."

Michael's uneasiness melted as he opened his carton of milk. The sour smell of curdled dairy twisted into his nose and he quickly set it aside. He noted the way Rich eyeballed it, quickly stating, "It's bad, don't."

"Gross."

"Right?"

"You like him a lot though, don't you?"

"Huh?"

"Hawkeye." Rich must have seen the blankness of Michael's expression, because he added, "because he's played by Jeremy Renner. Jeremy. Get it?"

"Oh. Right. You know, you could have just said Jeremy."

"Not as fun." Rich grabbed the carton of milk. Michael stiffened, waiting for him to inevitably sip it, before he arced it through the air towards the trashcan.

It should have been a graceful swish.

But instead, both watched in horror as the carton opened up, spewing a heavy line of chunk and rot over the cafeteria floor.

"Oops."

"Why'd you even do that?"

"Same reason you're brotherhumping Jeremy." Rich shrugged. And Michael waited for something profound. Some sort of explanation that would make all of this clear and concise and tied into a neat little-

"Brotherhumping?!?"

"Right. Like, studies have been shown, if you know someone long enough, they like, smell like incest or something to your brain. What's it called...the westermarck effect I think? Reverse sexual imprinting." Rich nodded slowly, as one of their classmates slid and skidded in the slick of milk his throw had left on the ground. "You're, like, not supposed to have those feelings for each other because you've grown up together. It's pseudo-incest."

"It's not incest."

"Pseudo-incest! Don't worry, I spank it to incest stuff all the time. It's me, your problematic fav, Rich Goranski."

Michael's mind abruptly skidded to the visual of Rich at his computer screen, a bottle of jergens and a filthy monitor of incognito delights. His brow sweaty, teeth burrowing into his lip to try to stifle his moans, his hand-

"-nature overcompensating for genetic similarities by-"

"Huh?"

"You were totally ignoring my sexy science session, weren't you?" Each 's' in sexy science session was drawn out, highly exaggerated, a flip of a tongue again to tease towards Michael.

He laughed. "Sorry. Just thinking-"

"About Jeremy's big ol' schlong in your mouth?"

"No." Maybe he should have said yes. Because that would have made more sense to think about, right? "I'm not saying it means anything, Rich. It's definitely not incest though."

"No, I know. It's just an interesting thing, you know? Science isn't an exact science."

They both stared at each other a moment, before Rich laughed.

"Wait, that's a contradiction, right? Well, whatever. Either way. Does he make you happy?"

"Of course he does. He's my best friend."

"And your boyfriend."

"Not my boyfriend." Michael tapped his fingers against the table. "I don't...I don't know what he is," He admitted softly. He hated to say it outloud, but something about Rich pulled the words from him. "I don't know what we are. And I'm afraid, if I ask him-"

"It'll make things too real?"

"Yeah. Like, we'll have to confront all this bullshit, and things are just finally good. Better than good. I don't want him to shut me out again."

Rich's expression softened. "I don't see how anyone could."

"I'm pretty easy to forget, dude."

"Oh please. Can I have another fry?"

Michael pushed his tray closer, watching as Rich swirled one of the potatoes in a line of ketchup.

"You're not even close to forgettable."

 

"I don't know."

"You're not. You're, like, super vibrant, man. And you're funny as fuck. And you're cute too. Like, full on button cute. Maybe even zipper cute, because zippers are way cuter than buttons."

"Zipper cute?"

"Yeah, you know. Cute as a button? Cute as a zipper? Cute as velcro? I don't know, all the fasteners. You're cute."

It took him a few moments of dissecting Rich's commentary before Michael caught onto the compliment itself. His face burned as he fixed his eyes down to the chipped polish of his nails. "Thank you," He muttered.

"And Jeremy's high if he doesn't see it."

"No, he usually doesn't smoke that much with me." Michael smiled. "Thank you, though. You really think he might think I'm cute?"

"I do. I see how he looks at you."

"And you don't think I'm being completely stupid, do you?"

Rich hesitated, long enough to eat another fry, before he shook his head. "Nah. You gotta do what makes you happy. This might end up being your destiny or something, dude. Like, some fucking soulmate bonding or something. You have to chase after it."

"You think?"

"I think."

"Really?"

"Really."

"You know, I'm almost glad he's out today. It's nice to talk to someone about this."

"I'm good to talk to, bro. How many times do I have to tell you?"

He was good to talk to, wasn't he? Who'd have thought Rich would turn out to be the sort Michael would see as a confidante?

"I guess I should go around and collect Jeremy's homework."

"Oh. Yeah."

"You want to come with?"

"Yeah!"

Michael tried to ignore how good it felt for someone to sound so eager to spend time with him, how it felt to be a first choice.

And then he chastised himself for needing to ignore such a thing, for the thought even occurring to begin with. Of course he was someone's first choice already! He had Jeremy.

Even if, despite Rich's encouragement, he still felt it was a Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Idea, it was HIS Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Idea, and he'd let himself sink with this ship to the very depths of the ocean if it meant he could do it hand in hand with his best friend.


	9. Like It Was a Private Show

Chapter 9: Like It Was a Private Show

"So basically it's a remix," Michael dangled the headphones out towards Rich, his eyes bright with a sort of giddiness that left Rich intoxicated, breathless, and metaphorically hard. "But, like, what it's sampling is that episode of Punky Brewster where the little girl gets trapped in a fridge."

"Sounds like a real banger." Rich brushed his fingers over the backs of Michael's hands as he took the headphones. He knew damn well he didn't need to touch him in order to make the transfer, that all contact was gratuitous and masochistic in its lack of any continuation. But Michael's hands were soft, and warm, and his fingers had the sort of curve to them that begged to be interwoven. 

Rich stared at the audio hardware for a few precious seconds, weighing them within his hands. Was it significant, for Michael to trust him to listen in like this? Was it some sort of olive branch? Was it a flirtatious cry for help, a need for escape from whatever non-relationship he had with Jeremy?

Rich felt that flutter of guilt at his own jealousy. It wasn't right. Jeremy was his friend. And he made Michael happy. What right did he have to cast any judgments? After all, if Michael threw himself into his lap and offered himself for handjobs and kissing and no other strings attached, wouldn't Rich have taken him up on it?

"So is this like an autotune thing or a full on song?" Rich asked as he began to fit the headphones over his ears. They were still warm from Michael. His lips ached with the urge to split into a goofy, delighted grin.

"Full on song, dude! It's pretty brilliant. Really captures that 80s cheeseball vibe."

"But does it capture that fridgeyness?"

"Dude, you can practically feel the suffocation--stop stop, I don't want to spoil anything, just listen to it, okay? It's so cool!"

And it was cool, Rich decided, but it was hard to focus on the gratuitous CPR PSA solo when Michael's hand was mere inches away from Rich's kneecap. He'd never known his kneecap to be an erogenous zone, but the body heat trickled up his skin, and Rich tried to block out the fact that he was listening to a song about the near-death of a child while fantasizing about how Michael might sound if he were to bite his neck, right now.

But like, a sexy neck bite. A brush of teeth against collarbone, hand up his shirt with one hand, fingers in his hair with the other. Not a creepy bite.

...it would be creepy regardless, though. That wasn't what Michael had intended when he'd invited him over.

"Isn't that so cool?" Michael's voice spilled enthusiasm over the pair of them, an unsophisticated blend of pure joy. Rich couldn't stop his smile at that, carefully pulling the headphones from his ears as the last of the notes fell around them.

"Pretty cool. What's the chick's name? Punky, I mean. Soleil Moon or something, right?"

"Soleil Moon Frye, yeah. She's not the one in the fridge, though, that's-"

"Cherie Johnson."

"Right! How do you know that?"

"Last name's Johnson. I make it my business to remember all other dick-related names. We're, like, practically family. Us innuendos gotta stick together, bro."

Michael took his headphones back, fitting them back around his neck with a small smile. "I always forget your name could be shortened to dick."

"I think you mean elongated. My dick is never short."

"Right, right, how could I be mistaken?" Michael's face flushed, a dull dust of pink over his darker skin. He fiddled with his hoodie string absently. 

"You know, I always confused Punky Brewster with that other show," Rich said.

"Hm?"

"The robot girl one. What's it called..."

"Small Wonder?"

"Yeah!" Rich pointed his finger upward in glee at a mystery solved. "That's it! Man, I fucking love robots, dude."

"So you've mentioned. OH but if you love robots--it's not Small Wonder, but there was this other show. Obscure, only ran for a few episodes in Norway I think, or maybe Finland, or something. And it's about these metal dudes and...man, you have to hear this theme song, the show itself was lousy, but the percussion on this is orgasmic!" Michael hopped out of his seat, rummaging through the nearest set of drawers to discover whatever mix tape held the song in question. "It's, like, a little new agey, but it's so good, dude, you're going to want to marry me for this!"

"Yeah," Rich breathed. "I'll bet I will."

It was nice, Rich thought. Spending afternoons like this. How had he gotten so lucky, to transition from the occasional lunchroom visit, to full on trips to the Mell basement of auditory pleasures?

Michael was an exceptional host, or maybe it was the house itself built for comfort. Snacks, beanbag chairs, fairy lights adorning the ceiling. Sometimes they played video games--and that was definitely only very occasionally, Rich's comparable lack of Nintendo prowess good to earn laughter and history lessons from Michael, but not adequate to carry on an active campaign.

That was what Jeremy was for though, wasn't it?

That and for the hickeys on Michael's neck.

Rich tried not to be bitter--and he thought he was doing a good job. Jeremy was a friend. A good friend. You didn’t spend weeks together in a hospital without bonding, or maybe it was something to do with the squips, or maybe it was just the fact that Jeremy was a genuinely cool dude. Definitely commendable as far as people to miss out on a romantic opportunity to. Because he made Michael smile, and they had a lifetime of memories together which Rich simply could never hope to compare to.

Michael was sure to remind him of that.

The stories were equal parts cute as they were devastating. All the little knickknacks of "Jeremy used to do this thing where-" this or "Jeremy just texted me the funniest-" that.

Rich sometimes wondered if he ever showed up in Michael's stories. If Michael ever paused between kisses with Jeremy to remark about the cool thing that Rich did or the glint of Rich's smile or even just 'I think I like him,' even if it was purely a platonic like, at least it'd be something.

If he couldn't be his love interest, that was okay. But Rich really wanted to be a part of Michael's story, even if it was just a bit part.

It was harder, on days where all three of them inhabited the same space.

Harder because of the guilt, if for nothing else. Because they were cute. Jeremy always looked shy, not quite withdrawn, but a little reserved when Michael would grab onto him. Their hands bumping together, a fumble of pinkies and index fingers, as Jeremy blushed and smiled.

"Hi," He'd say in the tiniest voice that Rich had ever heard.

"Fucking gay," Rich would usually respond. And they'd both look at him with a start, as though remembering they weren't the only two people in the world. Usually they'd giggle, either in tandem, or starting slow, first a laugh from Jeremy, then a crescendo of chuckles from Michael. And then all three of them would laugh.

And Rich would feel dirty for tainting it with his own, because it wasn't his symphony to meddle with. But there was an intoxication to their affection, no matter how much they didn't want to label it.

"He's still my best friend," Jeremy said at one point. Maybe Michael didn't want to question it, but Rich had no reason not to. Jeremy had glowed red, all the way through his ears, and stared at the ground. Rich could practically hear the racing of his heart.

"Yeah, but like, you two are totally banging, right?"

"Um. Not really, I mean, just sorta..."

"No buttfucking, right, right. It's because you're both bottoms," Rich said dryly. "You should like, figure out a way to scissor assholes, and then you'd be made."

Jeremy snorted. "That's disgusting."

"Scissoring is beautiful, Queere-eye."

"Not anal scissoring."

"See, that sounds kinda gory when you put it like that. Bladed bunghole. But you're a filthy kinkster, dude, you should be all for it."

"I'm not even...I'm not that depraved!"

"Says the furry."

Jeremy considered it a moment, before shrugging. "Well, I mean, you know."

"I do not. I'm a good boy."

"Uh huh."

"I am. Hey, speaking of furries, are you wearing a fursuit for Halloween?"

Jeremy shook his head, staring down at the tater tots on his lunch tray and nudging a few around absentmindedly. "I wouldn't risk getting it dirty."

"Wow. Do you even yiff, bro?"

Jeremy's laugh wasn't as intoxicating as Michael's, perhaps, but it lifted Rich's spirits all the same. He liked this. He liked sitting with Jeremy while Michael was busy with some extra credit assignment, shooting the shit and scarfing down cheapo cafeteria food.

"I don't know if I'm dressing up this year."

"Why not?"

Jeremy shrugged. He did that a lot, downplayed his own opinions with a raise of his shoulders.

"You sorta have to," Rich pointed out. "You need to do a dumb couple costume. Bacon and Eggs or Spoon and Fork or something."

"Those...those all sound terrible."

"You sound terrible."

Jeremy picked up one of his tots, bouncing it off the tip of Rich's nose with a small toss. They both laughed, as Rich picked it up off the table and popped it into his mouth.

"You do though. Bonnie and Clyde. But like, Michael can misunderstand, and dress up as Clyde the Pacman ghost instead."

Jeremy smiled warmly, swirling one of the tots in his ketchup. "That does sound like Michael." He glanced up. "I'm surprised you know enough to know that's one of the ghost names. But I guess you have been spending a lot of time around Michael."

"Not that much time."

"Kind of a lot."

Rich watched Jeremy consider it, looking at Rich for a few moments, as he took a bite. He waited for him to question it, for any sort of jealousy or accusations.

"Besides," Jeremy finally said. "We're not, um, not a couple, you know?"

Rich shrugged. "Could be."

"I guess." Jeremy shifted against his seat, a look of pinched discomfort on his face. "But, I mean, there's a lot going on. With tests and, like, college applications and, you know, that's the last thing Michael needs to stress out about right now, you know?"

Rich could see the Hindenburg crashing towards the ground. Could hear 'oh the humanity' and the flames and the crash and...fuck, the reality of how bad idea that was hit him in a wave.

He wondered, and would wonder in the future, if the humane thing would have been warning Jeremy, or if saying anything would be lighter fluid to the flames.

"Anyways, what about you? What are you doing for Halloween?"

"Trying not to set any fires," Rich said breezily, pointedly ignoring the queasy stiffness on Jeremy's face at the comment. "I dunno. Probably staying in, getting drunk in my bedroom, watch a Halloweentown marathon or something stupid." He looked at Jeremy seriously. "But I promise you, I will be dressed up for it, thank you very much. Can’t believe you. Not dressing up. What kind of disgrace are you?"

"Maybe I'll dress up," Jeremy said. "I don't know yet, that's all."

"I don't know yet," Rich mocked. 

"What doesn't he know?" Michael slipped into the bench beside Jeremy, resting his elbows on the cafeteria table and looking at Rich with that lazy smile of the freshly stoned. The smell of marijuana wafted over cheap fry oil and even cheaper cologne.

Rich watched the way Jeremy loosely rested his hand on top of Michael's. His throat felt too tight.

"Whether I'm dressing up."

"Jer, you have to dress up."

"Yeah," Rich nodded. "See?"

"It's our last Halloween before real adulthood!"

"And next year you'll be saying it's our first Halloween of real adulthood and, um, and we need to dress up ironically."

"I don't do things ironically. I'm post-irony," Michael said cockily.

"He's very avant-fucking-garde," Rich said. "A post-modern art installation."

"Or a performance piece," Michael smiled at him, as he stole one of Jeremy's tater tots. 

"Right. Like a mime."

"Not like a mime!" Michael laughed. "Gross!"

"What's gross about artistry, Mikey?"

Jeremy's eyes followed them back and forth, quietly taking them in, before chirping, "If this is your guys' way of trying to dress me up as a mime for Halloween, I'm out."

Michael's eyes danced over him. "I think you could pull it off."

Rich couldn't help but think about how much Michael would love to pull it off of Jeremy. How his hands probably itched with the urge. His collar felt too tight, his sleeves itching at skin too vibrant, and he wanted to jump out of his seat and leave them before the flirtations grew more intense.

But that wasn't something you did to your friends. If he wanted to be part of this story, he had to remember how to play his part.

So he folded back into talk about Halloween costumes and casual teasings. And ignored how cute their disaster was, even if they were hurtling for ground zero any minute now.


	10. I Guess Then the Stars had Aligned

Chapter 10: I Guess Then the Stars had Aligned

"Frankly, Mr. Goranski," The principal sighed, pulling her glasses from her face and rubbing her tired eyes. He watched the way her fingers moved the bags underneath, before she fit her glasses back onto her exhausted visage, "the only way you'd be able to graduate this year-"

"Is with a spunky attitude and a can-do outlook?"

Her eyes narrowed. Clearly, nobody appreciated his insightful...uh...insights. Yeah. Insightful insights sounded about right. "No," She said humorlessly. "Frankly, with how much classwork you missed junior year-"

"I was in intensive care!"

"-you'd have to-"

"I was literally covered head to toe in third degree burns. What was I supposed to do? Wheel myself in mid-skin graft? Like 'hey guys, it's me, your boy leatherface'? Come the fuck on-"

"Nobody is blaming you, Mr. Goranski, and for the third time, mind your language."

Rich scowled, but remained quiet. He crossed his arms over his chest, huffing out an annoyed breath.

The principal smiled faintly. "Honestly, this isn't as grim as it sounds. Yes, graduating this year isn't feasible-"

"Yes it is!" Rich already forgot his last scolding. "Yes it totally is! I just...I take some online classes, maybe summer school or something, and-"

"To graduate, you'd have to take on a full load of junior year courses, along with your senior schedule. No, graduating just isn't possible without you putting in a full 24 hours a day of classwo-"

"Then I'll do that!" Problem solved. He dusted his hands off, palm against palm. To think, it was so simple. Just day in and day out of constant school work. He could invest in some energy drinks and bust all of that out.

"The human body requires such things as sleep, Mr. Goranski."

"Sleep is for gays."

"Mr. Goranski!"

"No, lady, look, I'm allowed to say it," Rich quickly clarified. "I'm totally-"

"I will not tolerate such hateful, vulgar language in my office."

"It wasn't hateful, it-"

"Maybe you really are a lost cause. Such disgusting slurs."

"Gay isn't really a slur..." he trailed off.

Lost cause. Right.

"...so no graduating this year?" He finally said, soft, his gaze drifting down to the placard that held her name. His eyes glazed over, but he blinked, a flutter of eyelashes and willpower as he kept himself under control.

"I'm afraid not." Her voice was icy. "As much as we'd like to have you out of here in a timely manner, frankly, your slacking has proved to your detriment."

Slacking. As if he'd-

Well. He had set the fire in the first place, hadn't he? It really was his fault. He shifted in the seat.

"Fine," He muttered. "Can I get back to class then?"

He didn't remember stumbling back to math. Or taking his seat among his peers.

Not his peers. They were ahead of him. Here he was again, just like freshman year, scrambling to catch up. To learn the rules and social cues, or in this case, to try to argue a case for his own worth, when he wasn't convinced of it himself.

A piece of paper, folded into a makeshift airplane, crunched into the fold of his ear. Rich winced, not because he was hurt, but because he was startled. He rubbed his ear, only to look down at the paper on his desk.

_you okay, dude? you were with the principal for awhile._

Who the hell would write him a handwritten note instead of shooting him a text? Rich glanced up, eyes scanning towards the seat one desk to the right and to the back of him. Michael raised his hand in a small wave, then gestured towards the airplane.

Rich glanced between paper and Michael Mell, the impossible anomaly of retro notegiving. He laughed, gleeful, stifling the noise behind his palm to keep their math teacher's drone from stuttering into accusations.

**yeah bro.**

No, that wasn't fair. He twirled his pencil between his fingers, briefly biting the eraser, before crossing out his answer, changing his cadence.

**not really. not graduating until next year. apparently setting yourself on fire is like bad for education or something idk**

He fixed the folds of the airplane, setting tight lines and aerodynamic perfection into loose leaf college ruled confessions. He watched it loop through the air, before colliding onto Michael's desk.

It became a routine, note after note after note.

_that's totally unfair! it's not your fault you were in the ICU_

**i mean, it kind of was**

_bullshit. what about online classes?_

**tried that. no dice lmao**

Michael frowned, scribbling a response. _so you're not going to walk with us at graduation?_

Did it matter to him? Rich's heart pulsed within his chest, a touch of intensity it hadn't possessed before. He glanced at Michael, giving a small shake of his head, before he began to write.

**i guess at least this means i can get all those crucial milestones i missed last year.**

_such ass. you must be pissed._

He should have left it at that. But he sighed, twirling lead over paper.

**disappointed in myself mostly. oh well**

Michael kept the note for awhile, regarding his words, before his pen began to etch underneath his words.

Rich unfolded it carefully.

_hey, you should come to play tryouts with me and jeremy._

Not what he was expecting in the slightest.

**???**

_like, i mean, you don't have to tryout. but it's the second play of the year, and jeremy wants to give it a go again, and i'm going for moral support._

**and you want a bigger cheer section for queere?**

_no, i just think it might be good. to get your mind off things._

Rich wasn't in much of a mood for socializing. But he glanced back at Michael, watched him fiddle with his hoodie strings. And he grinned, throwing him a thumbs up, before tucking the note into his binder as the bell to release the students into the hallway chimed.

Play auditions. It was only as he thought it that he realized they'd survived Halloween. Rich smiled morosely. It had been nice, hadn't it? Dressing up, handing out candy to the trailer park kids...as his father slurred insults from his chair, hacking over a cigarette and a Coors Light.

Nice. The same way he wasn't a disappointment. The same way Michael was totally going to fall in love with him. The same way-

"Hey, Rich!" Jeremy only stammered a little over his name, his smile bright and his cardigan well-worn and dull. The auditorium was largely empty, as Jeremy rocked back and forth anxiously on his feet. "Are you trying out too?"

"Nah," Rich shook his head. "Maybe next year."

"Next year?" Jeremy started to laugh, before taking in Rich's face. "What, um, what do you mean?"

"Not graduating this year." He walked down the sloped incline of the entrance, shrugging. "Apparently I really fucked myself in the ass, no homo, with my pyrotechnics."

Like most people, Jeremy seemed uncomfortable whenever Rich brought up the fire.

"But hey, whatever, I get to go to prom twice, so that's cool at least."

"Y...yeah, I guess that's something."

"Right?" Rich smiled, razor blades in his gums and throat, as he added, "I guess you and Mikey are going, right?"

"To graduation?"

"Prom."

"O-oh." Jeremy paused, leaning back against one of the seats. "I don't...I mean, it's a little soon, isn't it? To think about that?"

"Hell no it isn't. Prom's a big deal!" Rich laughed a little, rubbing the back of his neck. "Okay, it's not a big deal, not like, when you think about the big deals of the actual world. Global starvation and genocide and shit. But for right now, this year, this, like, reality, it's a big deal."

"Prom isn't until after Christmas though. And it's-"

"Almost thanksgiving now, bro."

"I don't think Michael really...I mean, prom isn't really either of our scenes and--Christine?"

"Jeremy!"

Christine was cute, a capital C Cute, her flouncy skirts and leggings that clashed in just the right way. Her hair bobbing around her round face, her eyes glowing as she bounced over to Jeremy. She grabbed both of his hands in her own. "How _are_ you?"

And she spoke sincerely, the sort of sincere that made Jeremy's face burn, and his

...his eyes light up.

Oh no.

Rich wondered what it felt like sometimes. To jump out of an airplane and realize only afterwards that you'd forgotten your parachute.

He glanced back at the door, the same double doors that Michael would surely swing through at any moment. And then he turned back towards Jeremy, who'd already forgotten Rich's existence.

Oh no.

"Oh, uh, you know me. Jeremy the, um, good-feeling guy." He swallowed, adam's apple bobbing. "I mean, I'm good. I'm really, you know, I'm great."

"Oh, good!" Christine giggled. That sort of girlish giggle that could make a boy's heart puddle into his shoes.

And Jeremy looked pretty gelatinous. Sure to crumble under her eyes, smile, laugh, hands.

"I missed you. We haven't really seen each other since-"

"Summer. Right. I mean, um, you know." Jeremy shrugged. Their hands were still connected. "I figured you needed some space."

"Why?"

"Well, I mean, you know. To, uh, explore yourself."

"Explore myself?" Her face colored in embarrassment. And Rich stifled a laugh. It wasn't funny, that she thought he was eluding to masturbation. Or rather, that part was funny, but the idea that Michael could show up any minute and see his supposedly-not-serious-but-basically-a-boyfriend boyfriend making hearteyes towards his former love interest was-

"Jeremy?"

Oh no.

Oh no.

Oh NO.

Rich's eyes darted over Michael. Red hoodie and face slightly flushed from clearly rushing to make it before auditions. His glasses were crooked, and Rich didn't think, reaching over to fix them. Michael glanced at him oddly, not the picturesque gratitude he'd hoped for, before his gaze moved to Jeremy.

"Sorry I'm late, I just...oh."

He didn't add the 'no' to the end of that, but Rich thought it loud enough for the both of them.

Oh no.

Because Jeremy still had his hands in Christine's, even as he looked towards Michael. "Oh, hey, Michael. I was just, um, talking to Christine-"

"About me 'exploring myself'."

They both giggled, all inside jokes and flirtations. 

Michael's brow furrowed, before he laughed a little, an outsider. "Oh, that's cool. Um, did you already look through the script to see what part you want-"

"What do you mean, though, about exploring myself?"

Michael's words evaporated as Jeremy looked at her, loopy and gooey and weak.

"Oh, um. I just, you know, since you're gay now--I mean, I guess you've always been a lesbian, not just now, I didn't mean it like that--and there's nothing wrong with it, of course, I just-"

"A lesbian?" Christine's hands had mercilessly dropped from Jeremy's. One of her hands rested on her hip, her head tilting in the opposite direction. "Is that what this is about? The thing in Pinkberry?"

"I mean, uh, maybe?"

"Jeremy." She smiled, and Rich glanced over at Michael.

He looked nauseous, and Rich's head spun. He reached over, grabbing Michael's arm. Michael jerked his arm away, his gaze fixed on Jeremy.

"I'm not a lesbian," Christine finished her thought.

"Really?" Rich could hear the exclamation marks explode overhead, Jeremy's eyes bright.

"No," Christine laughed again. Michael shrank in on himself, his fingers tugging anxiously at the sleeve of his hoodie. "I mean, I think...I don't know, I don't really know what I am. I think I might be pan or...I don't know. But girls are nice, and boys are nice, and non-binary people are nice, and I just-"

"You're not a lesbian!"

"That's what I just said."

"Wow. I just...wow! Congratulations!" Jeremy winced. "Wait, that's not what-"

"I'm gonna go sit in the back, Jer," Michael said, so impossibly soft it couldn't be ignored. 

"Huh? Oh, yeah," Jeremy said absentmindedly. He grinned at Christine. "I guess we should, uh, take a look at the scripts."

"Right! Let's see what fate has in mind for us."

"Definitely!"

Rich watched as they gravitated towards the stage, the stumbling eager gait in Jeremy's step. He sucked in a shaky breath, turning around to find Michael had already moved away, sitting in the back, his hood pulled overhead.

He hesitantly approached him. "Do you want me to leave?"

"I don't know," Michael's voice trembled. But he moved his backpack from the seat beside him. "I'm here for moral support," He breathed. "So, you know, I can morally support you if you-"

Rich took the seat next to him, wrapping his arm around Michael's shoulders. He squeezed him, urging a tenderness to limbs that were built to annihilate. "It's gonna be okay."

"I know."

"I mean, it doesn't necessarily mean-"

"-yes it does." Michael insisted without hearing the fullness of Rich's words. "I'm sorry, I'm supposed to be taking your mind off things." He laughed morosely, pulling off his glasses, as he reached up to rub tears from his eyes.

"Mikey-"

His face turned, burying against Rich's shoulder. The sob that escaped him was muffled, Rich's eyes shifting to the stage as Jeremy began to run lines with Christine. Michael's fingers knotted into Rich's shirt and he stroked his dark hair. Mumbled 'it's okay's like candy corn, cheap and too sickening sweet.


	11. I Just Feel So Small

Chapter 11: I Just Feel So Small

Did it get any more humiliating than crying into Rich Goranski's arms?

As it turned out, yes. Yes, there was a fact that made crying into Rich Goranski's arms even more humiliating.

Like the fact that Michael had been crying over a boy--over a goddamned boy. That made it even more humiliating. The sort of shame he had no name for.

Admittedly, Jeremy was an exceptional goddamned boy.

But it didn't make the tears any less sour.

Michael kicked a pebble across the street. His face was dry, but raw, and he couldn't quite bring himself to meet Rich's gaze.

"Thanks for walking me home, I guess." That was probably a shitty way to phrase that. He winced. "Sorry. I mean, just, thanks, man."

"Yeah." Rich smiled, faint and sympathetic. Michael dropped his eyes again to avoid it. "It's kinda cool walking to the good side of the tracks."

Michael may have scoffed but his throat was too tight. "I'd hardly call this the good side."

"Shit, if this is bad, then I'm living in Chernobyl."

Michael felt his lips impossibly lift at the corners. "Real radioactive."

"Hell yeah. Dude, did you know they like have radioactive dogs there?"

"At your house?"

"Nah, I'm more of a cat person. No, dude. Chernobyl."

"And bears."

"Seriously?"

"I think I read that somewhere."

"Man, that's fucking sick. Nuclear bears. So fucking cool, dude!"

"Winnie the Pooh in the Fallout Acre Woods."

Rich laughed. "Nice."

"Yeah. Um. Thanks, uh, again."

"For the radiation?"

Michael fiddled with the strings of his hoodie. "Yeah. For the...for the radiation." He tried to force a laugh, but it sounded more like a dry, raspy cough.

Rich followed each movement with his eyes, and somehow seemed to miss the hint that he was supposed to leave. "You know, it's kind of sad, isn't it?"

"Huh?"

"The Chernobyl puppies. Or, I guess the bears too, but dogs are like, evolved to want to be played with by humans, right?"

"I guess."

"It's just, you know, kind of sad. Because they can't."

"Can't?"

"Be played with. I mean, without irradiating their 'master' or whatever. It's like, some sort of fucked up tragedy."

Michael's mind began to roll with it, trying to catch up with Rich's brainwaves. "You mean because they're wired that way? Like...all they want, all they can think, is that they want to play fetch or get a belly scratch or-"

"Yeah, like that! They see a human, and think, 'cool, master, I'm a good boy!' or, like, in dog language I guess."

"But they can't." Michael's minuscule smile had long since died. He hugged his arms around himself. "All they want is to be loved, but they can't be loved by the one they want most, because they're toxic and," Michael's eyes began to burn, "and they'll kill them. They'll kill them, they make them sick, and...fuck."

Did it get any more humiliating than crying into Rich Goranski's arms, he'd had the audacity to think earlier.

Yes.

Crying into his arms twice in one day. 

"...Mikey, hey. Hey, it's okay. They, like, they have the bears, you know?"

"What?" Michael sobbed, his glasses crookedly falling down the bridge of his nose. Rich's arms were looped around him, and his hand pressed against the back of his neck, thumb teasing over his hairline, and it was such an awkward position with their size differences. Almost awkward enough to be funny, but all he could think about were the damn radioactive dogs chasing after hazmat suits too sterile to ever love them and-

Fuck, there came the tears again.

Still, Rich had something to say about bears, and something urged him to at least attempt to listen.

"The bears. The Chernobyl bears."

"Huh?"

"You know. The dogs are radioactive, but so are the bears. They, like, can irradiate the lands together."

"I don't think bears and dogs cohabitate, Rich."

Rich guided Michael's head down to his shoulder. His other hand, the one not pressed against his neck, softly rubbed the small of his back. "Yeah, well, you're gay."

Michael lifted his head, peeking at Rich through his fogged glasses. Rich stuck his tongue out at him.

"Yeah, well," Michael considered his options, only to find himself laughing, a small little whimper of joy trickling into his voice. "You're a bi disaster."

"I'm THE bi disaster." Rich pressed his hand against his hip, cocking it with a casual sort of confidence that Michael couldn't even begin to consider replicating. "You got any cream soda?"

"I...because semen?"

"What?"

Michael felt color begin to creep up his cheeks. "I...it's because you, um, you said you're bi, and...and...cum drinking...cream soda." His sentences were 90% ellipses and frantic gasps for breath. His eyes darted around uncertainly, as Rich's head fell back into a sharp laugh.

"Yeah, dude! I'm Rich Goranski and I love jizz!" Rich giggled, moving up to Michael's side and bumping his hip against him. "I meant actual cream soda, dorkus."

"Oh. Um. Maybe." Rich stared at him a few moments, an expectant sort of smile on his face. What was he expecting?

Oh. 

Right.

"Do you want to come in?"

"Yeah! You can kick my ass at fucking Ghost Dick 7 or something."

"What the hell is that?"

"I don't know. Obscure Game Reference Number 79."

"So you went with Ghost Dick 7?"

"I figured 6 was too mainstream."

"There'd have to be a Ghost Dick 1-5 first in order for," He made himself stop, lips tugging upward the more Rich grinned at him. "I'll find something thematically similar to kick your ass at."

"Cool."

"Yeah," Michael slipped his keys into the lock, smiling down at his feet. "Cool."

Admittedly, it was pretty cool. Rich had a way of overstaying his welcome that made Michael's head spin and lips ache with laughter. His presence was strange in Jeremy's familiar bean bag chair, tiny and impossible, but for a few hours, Michael almost forgot how brightly Jeremy had smiled at Christine.

And it definitely made him forget to check his phone for any missed texts or calls until after a thoroughly gaming-whipped Rich tiredly dragged himself towards the door.

"This was fun." Rich leaned against the doorframe. He yawned, rubbing his eyes on the back of his arm. The movement shifted his tank, lifted it enough to show a strip of speckled stomach, of toned abs. Michael's chest tightened for a moment, eyes widening, before he forced his gaze down to the ground.

"Yeah," Michael said. His fingers twisted around his hoodie cord until he was sure he'd cut off the circulation. He loosened it, only to start twisting again in the other direction. "Sorry I was such a spaz today."

"About the dogs?"

"What?"

"The Pups of Chernobyl."

"Oh. Right. That too."

Rich's expression grew more somber. "I'm sorry about Jeremy too."

"Oh. Right. That too."

He tapped his shoe against Michael's. "We could go egg his house."

"No, he didn't do anything wrong."

"I didn't say he did. I just like to vandalize." He tilted his head. "We could go egg Christine's house."

"She really didn't do anything wrong."

"Besides being straight."

"Or pan or whatever."

"Right. Fucking pans."

"Where's your solidarity, Disaster Bi?"

Rich smiled. "Fair enough. But I'm just saying, most of these problems can be bridged with a good egging."

"No eggs."

"Toilet paper?"

"No-"

"Because it's a shitty situation, get it?" Rich bounced on his feet. "So we TP 'em. Get it? Because it's-"

"Shitty," Michael snorted. "Yeah. I got it. It...it kinda is shitty, isn't it?" He pressed his lips firmly together, struggling to fight the wobble of them. "I...he didn't owe me anything-"

"You're allowed to be upset, Mikey."

"I know."

"No. Really. I'm not saying anything about Jeremy. But you're allowed to be upset. It's shitty. You really like him."

"...I really like him." Admitting it felt dirty and shaky and too impossibly true. His fingernails dug into his palms. "Why do I have to like him?"

"He's cute. You have history. He's got a nice butt. Of course you like him." Rich shrugged. "But hey, think of it like this."

"What?"

"Like, at least you're not pregnant."

The absurdity of the statement drew another laugh from Michael. "Joy of joys, I've really won the luck lottery on that one."

"It's true, a sweet little sub like you-"

"Hey, who says I'm a sub?"

"Please. Mikey, please. Don't make me laugh."

Their eyes met, and both burst into giggles. Michael couldn't even place quite why they were laughing, just that suddenly the urge to laugh had overwhelmingly taken him. 

"I'll walk you to school tomorrow-"

"You don't have to, I...left my car at school. Shit."

"Yeah," Rich grinned. "So you need to be escorted to the school parking lot."

"I can't believe I walked home without my car."

"Shit-topper on the shit-sundae."

"It's your fault, you distracted me." Michael tried to feel anger. But instead, he felt a tug of comfort at the promise of companionship the next day. "It's not too out of your way, right?"

"What, your place?"

"Yeah."

"Nah. Besides, like I said. Good side of the tracks."

"I mean, only if you're sure-"

"I'm sure."

"Okay."

They only stalled two or three more times before Rich finally slipped out of his door. Michael watched him bound down the street.

It wouldn't be until he was nearly halfway downstairs before he remembered to check his phone. Surely Jeremy had phoned, or sent a series of frantic messages. Surely he missed him as much as Michael missed him, and had seen the error of his ways.

Michael's thumb quivered as it fluttered over his screen. He watched light flood his display.

No new messages.


End file.
